


With Human Skin

by AlixanderFD



Series: The Flesh Not Seen [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Animism, Deities, Flash Fiction, Gore, Macabre, Memento mori
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22983721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlixanderFD/pseuds/AlixanderFD
Summary: Pity devours something unwanted.—‘A spotted apple fell from a tree recently. He watched it drop and saw that its luster shone in wrong ways. It flushed red in the autumn warmth, but…“Eat me,” it sighed. “I want to be eaten.”’
Series: The Flesh Not Seen [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651750
Kudos: 1





	With Human Skin

A spotted apple fell from a tree recently. He watched it drop and saw that its luster shone in wrong ways. It flushed red in the autumn warmth, but…

 _Eat me,_ it sighed. _I want to be eaten._

They find it disgusting. Not just a rotten fruit off the branch but a fundamental wrong. Vexing in pink and macabre in purple. Defiling human and parasite in black. They see it stuck in the tree’s roots and count the days since it first appeared, hoping this one will be the last. No one will go near it, and the apples with sweeter meat resent it. Nobody will carry it away.

 _I see you standing there in the shade,_ it said to him. _Won’t you consume me? Won’t you feel for me?_

 _I would strain at a pair of lips,_ it begged. _I want teeth._

Pity outstretched his fingers.

“Will I be poisoned if I take one bite?” He brushed a thumb along its crispest parts, and thinking how prettily ripe, how remarkably like apple flesh its bruises were, tapped it against his lip.

With meandering teeth he scraped salt and oil from its skin. He found that its unseemly taste pulled as it pushed; his tongue savored every swipe across his palate.

Iron sourness. The sickness of it. The way it burst open at the gentlest prod. All of it was heady, and rind to hideous core he stripped it bare.

_Eat me..._

In the evening the roots of that particular tree cradled the stem and seeds left inside the husk.

_Eat me._

And the night set in and scabbed it over.

_Eat me._

And the winter frost came.

_Eat me._

And the mud in the spring sank it deep.

_Eat me._

And the dogs would not go near it. An affront to goodness, it desecrated the tree.

It called out for Pity.

 _Eat me,_ it pleaded. _I want to be eaten._


End file.
